2018 Volkswagen Passat
This year drew an ordinary 45 complaints for a Volkswagen Passat — the model's median is 152. What they were about is the unusual part: 24.4% of them mention brakes, against 6.1% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Volkswagen Passat, which began in 2012. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 45 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 152 |
| Involving a crash | 5 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 25.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- brakes — 24.4% of this year's complaints, against 6.1% across the other years of this generation (4×).
- stated driving — 13.3% of this year's complaints, against 2.9% across the other years of this generation (4.7×).
- kept — 8.9% of this year's complaints, against 1.4% across the other years of this generation (6.3×). Owners wrote it as: kept, oil change.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
FRONT BRAKES MAKES WHISTLING NOISE WHEN ACTIVATED. SLIPPAGE OCCURS IN RAINY CONDITIONS. THE FRONT BRAKE DISCS ARE NOT VISUALLY SMOOTH.
WHILE GOING THROUGH A CURVE, IF ATTEMPT TO SLOW DOWN, MY BRAKES SEEM TO MAKE SOME TYPE OF SCRAPING SOUND AND I CAN FEEL THE SCRAPE OR VIBRATION OF THE PROBLEM THROUGH THE PEDAL.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V536000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 18V369000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC
- 19V389000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
- 20V561000 UNKNOWN OR OTHER
How this was worked out
Every year of the Volkswagen Passat was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2018 Volkswagen Passat? What happened to yours?
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